Bubble Burst: NOM Silent After Expensive Iowa Loss

When Democrat David Weprin lost his September race for Congress in New York, the National Organization for Marriage egregiously gloated that the entire election had been decided on the issue of same-sex marriage. NOM had spent over $50,000 to defeat Weprin because he supported New York’s marriage equality law as a member of the state Assembly, and even resorted to attacking him for “defying Jewish law” through mailers and robocalls. But now NOM has lost a similar effort in Iowa and is completely silent so far.

In this special state Senate election, the DC-based group spent around $40,000 supporting Republican Cindy Golding, again trying to paint the entire election as being about the singular issue of same-sex marriage. But this time they failed — in fact, Democrat Liz Mathis won with a healthy 55 percent of the vote. NOM has not even mentioned the election today, with the exception of its cultural director, Thomas Peters, who turned tail after the race and blamed Golding for being “a weak candidate.”

Alvin McEwen points out that despite NOM’s grotesque campaign spending and new self-victimizing campaigns, its leaders have “gone into hiding.” There have been no public appearances by Brian Brown, Maggie Gallagher, or NOM’s radical new chairman, John Eastman, suggesting the organization is prioritizing its spending power. The group’s immense funding comes from a select few donors, but its attempts to keep them anonymous by fighting state campaign finance laws are failing left and right. And in Iowa, NOM spent the last day on the defense, separating itself from anti-gay robo calls it claimed to know nothing about. It’s no wonder the organization is trying to garner sympathy through its self-victimizing — they know that support for their issue is floundering, as is the power they thought they had to enforce it.

NOM is a corporate bully, a vindictive outside force with a singular agenda that becomes less popular with every passing day. No doubt, this week’s failure was a lesson in humility. But as long as NOM keeps funneling money into states to advance its anti-gay prerogative, it should continue to be seen as the solitary tyrant that it truly is.

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Update:

Around 3:00 PM, NOM acknowledged its loss in Iowa for the first time by simply quoting an article from the Des Moines Register on its blog.